Through this independent study, I explored how education across the United States, and specifically at Episcopal, has changed over the past 100 years. I started this project because, as a fourth generation student at Episcopal, I wondered just how different the Episcopal experience was for my great-grandfather compared to mine. I explored the course catalogues to track most of the changes, using the catalogue for this upcoming year, 2018-2019, and then the catalogue every ten years prior to track the major changes of the school. For primary sources, I used databases such as JSTOR to find older articles discussing American education, and then compared those to each other, along with my experiences today. 

Episcopal High School's 2018 History of the South Class tackled the Civil War for their Final Project. The group researched the young alumni's role in the war. Most fought for the Confederacy, but there were a minority who remained loyal to the Union. Through the stories of the secession crisis, the war, the roles of specific Old Boys, and a hometown map, the students sought to show a fuller picture of Episcopal's role in the Civil War. 

Over the past 50 years, Episcopal has gone from being a school with only four percent minority students in 1968 to thirty-six percent in 2018. While the school has made tremendous progress towards becoming more diverse and inclusive there is still much work to be done. This student project is a part of a larger movement by the EHS administration, faculty and student body to study and learn from the history, good and bad, of the High School.

This exhibit examines the evolution of integration and diversity at Episcopal. Beginning with an explanation of the historical and political climate in the 1960s, the first page describes the historical context behind the experiences of the EHS student body and alumni. The exhibit then continues chronologically from 1965 when the Board of Trustees voted to view all admissions candidates equally to present-day. Also, throughout the exhibit, there are pages highlighting Headmasters Hoxton and Ainslie (on "Administration"), Wilmer Henry (on "Unwavering Service"), and the first African American teachers (on "Episcopal's 'Firsts'"). Overall, this project is an attempt at expressing the narratives and experiences of those who paved the path for Episcopal to become an inclusive and welcoming community. 

Those who take on the challenge to be a "first" have a keen "comprehension of the importance of their actions." The students who integrated Episcopal were no different. Every boy who integrated Episcopal was aware that his success or failure would determine the path of future students. Looking back on the transformation of the past fifty years, we must remember who paved this path at Episcopal. These students deserve commemoration for their sacrifices, and their stories educate us on how and how not to treat others. 

If you would like to share your experiences from your time at Episcopal please reach out at 18webbn@episcopalhighschool.org.

- Nettie Webb '18

Overview

Asian students have been at Episcopal High School longer than black students. This exhibit aims to look at the history of Asian student migration, the history of Asian students at Episcopal and their legacy after Episcopal High School.

The single shot in Sarajevo changed the world fundamentally, as the nations around the globe zealously fell into the cataclysm of war. It was supposedly the “war to end all war,” but it also was the war that ended the old Victorian world. Albeit joining the war much later, the United States was fundamentally changed by the war as well, on both the battlefield and the homefront: White American women entered the workforce and gained the right to vote; the first Great Migration took place, allowing millions of African Americans to leave the Jim Crow South; national identity and citizenship were reshaped and emerged as a much stronger concept. Yet, it was also a time of surveillance, draft resistance, propaganda, union suppression, red scare, and racial violence. Episcopal was caught in the middle of these changes, for better or worse.

2019 marks the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the official end of the war, and this Omeka exhibit is dedicated to telling the forgotten stories of Episcopal during the war and restoring the historical memory of this transformative war.